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Antony Flew – did he really write There IS a God?

In late October, celebrated (former) atheist Antony Flew’s long-awaited There IS a God, with Roy Varghese, appeared. It is an elegant little book, as one might expect from a British philosopher. Its sparkling clarity does more than illuminate Antony Flew’s change of mind on the subject of God.

Authorship controversy? Well, yes, some argue that Flew didn’t really write the book. Fundies are holding him captive in a church basement, see?

Oh, come on. If Flew had suddenly, dramatically, turned back to atheism, would the same people suggest that he was senile or that he didn’t really write the (later) retraction? Is that truly the atheists’ best shot? Then their case is worse than I had realized. As a matter of fact, people who are senile tend to confirm their earlier views more strongly, rather than change them decisively. Change might require intellectual resources they no longer have.

For fun, I thought I would take a look at the Amazon 1-star reviews. Pretty sad. They are almost unanimously convinced by a NY Times report which started the whole rumor that Flew did not write the book. Very sad when all you have to work with are ad hominem attacks.

when the facts are on your side, argue the facts.
when the law is on your side, argue the law
when neither is on your side, question the motives of the other side
here, question whether it’s *really* the other side
better add that one to the list

As I will say in my long review of Flew’s book, if it were credible that Flew did not really write the portions of the book credited to him (the majority), the publisher (Harper One) would be compelled to withdraw it out of decency. But no one in fact believes the allegation, which is why they have not been compelled to do so.

Disclosure: Harper One is also the publisher of Mario Beauregard’s and my The Spiritual Brain, and the two books have been marketed together (sometimes, I believe, as a twofer). However, I have enough independence to be critical of the publisher’s strategy for There IS a God.

I believe, on the balance of the internal evidence, that Flew did write the material he is credited with but that the choice of attribution enabled those who sought to discredit Flew’s devastating disclosures to raise a convenient objection.

Off topic: Is it normal there there is no longer an iGoogle gadget or RSS feed for uncommondescent.com ?
Enter uncommondescent or uncommon descent in the google find for adding gadgets and nothing is found.

It appears to me that this blog is highly censored and controlled. I made comments on the post in question which were not published. Hard to respect any postings, since authors are not willing to hear any counter arguments.